为见Facebook好友 美国大妈环游世界

ArLynn Presser is a 51-year-old woman who lives in Winnetka, Illinois. It’s normal for ArLynn to stay indoors all the time. In fact, for most of her adult life, she hardly ever left the confines of her home, and most certainly did not venture out of her home town. Her career as a writer ensured that she could spend her life indoors and still get things done. If this sounds strange to you, you must know that ArLynn suffers from agoraphobia – the fear of crowded places or enclosed public spaces.

Arlynn Presser（阿莲·普瑞色）今年51岁，居住在伊利诺斯州的温内卡特。她基本上每天都待在家里。实际上，在她成年以后，几乎没有离开过家，更不要提离开家乡了。她是一名作家，这让她可以足不出户就能把事情做好。这事情听起来很奇怪，不过这是因为Arlynn患有陌生环境恐惧症---害怕拥挤的地方或封闭的公共场所。

Like most introverts, ArLynn interacts with people online and she has 325 friends she chats with on Facebook. Last year, she went and did something that no one could have ever expected. On 31st of Dec, 2010, she made a resolution to meet all 325 of her Facebook friends in person, the following year. She wrote a blog post about it and then set about achieving her goal. She called her project “Face to Facebook”.

就像大部分内向的人一样，Arlynn是通过网络和他人交流，现在她在Facebook（脸谱）上已经有325名好友。就在去年，她做了别人都未曾想过的事情。2010年12月31日，她下定决心要在下一年和她Facebook上的325名好友亲自见面。为此她写了一篇博客，然后开始实现目标。她把这一计划叫做 “Facebook面对面”。

For a person who was terrified of flying and could never get on a plane before, this was certainly a daunting task. In the end, she did a great job, traveling over 13 countries and taking over 39 flights. By the end of 2011, she had met 292 friends, about 90% of what she had intended to. ArLynn had been to Taiwan, Korea, Philippines, Dubai, Italy, Malaysia, Ireland, England, Germany and four other countries.

对于一个害怕飞行，以前从未登上飞机的人来说，这无疑是个艰巨的任务。最后，她的表现非常出色，到过13个国家，坐过39次飞机。到2011年底，她已经 和292名好友见过面，是预想的90%。Arlynn去过中国台湾、韩国、菲律宾、迪拜、意大利、马来西亚、爱尔兰、英国、德国和其他四个国家。

According to Presser, this was something she just had to do, to make a drastic change in her life. She said, “A lot of it was just realizing that with my sons gone, I was spending a lot more time alone and a lot more time in front of the computer.” Of the 325 people she had decided to meet, a few were her old friends from high school and college. A few weren’t keen on her idea of ‘meeting’ and unfriended or blocked her, 18 people ignored her repeated requests to meet, two were profiles of pets, and five people had passed away.

Presser说，她必须要这么做，来彻底改变自己的生活。她说：“这么做是因为我意识到随着儿子们的离去，我独处的时间越来越长，在电脑前呆的时间也越来越长。” 在她决定见面的325名好友中，有几个是她在高中和大学时的老朋友，有几个不想和她“见面”，在Facebook上把她删除了或加入了黑名单，有18个忽视了她的一再请求，其中两个人的页面是宠物的简介，还有五个人已经离世了。

Meeting her Facebook friends was not always easy and she sometimes found herself in the middle of an anxiety attack. For instance, when one hairdresser friend offered to cut her hair, the skin on her face, chest and arms broke into hives. Sometimes she would face emotional breakdowns and moments of panic. For safety reasons, she always had a chaperon with her, and made sure the meetings were conducted in public.

和她Facebook上的好友见面并不容易，有时侯她的焦虑症会发作。例如，有一次，她的理发师好友主动给她理发，她的脸上、胸上和胳膊上却因此起了麻疹。有时她的情绪会突然失控并感到恐慌。为了安全起见，她总是带一名女伴，并确保见面地点是在公共场所。

Despite all the problems she faced, ArLynn did seem to have some wonderful moments. One of her friends taught her how to open a champagne bottle with a sabre. She also learned opera singing, trained to be a bodyguard, rode in a motorcycle sidecar, took Zumba lessons and climbed a mountain in California – all with her Facebook friends. Quite a year, I must say! Now her incredible experience has inspired a documentary called “Face to Facebook“, about Facebook, anxiety, and the power of social media to inspire great personal change.

虽然遇到了很多难题，Arlynn也留下了一些精彩的瞬间。她的一个好友教她用刀子打开香槟。她还学习了歌剧演唱、接受了保镖训练、乘坐了挎斗摩托车、学习了尊巴健身舞，在加利福尼亚还爬了座山—这些都是和她Facebook上的好友一起完成的。我不得不说，这是不平凡的一年！现在，她的这一不可思议的经历激发了制作人的灵感，决定制作一部名为“Facebook面对面”的纪录片，讲述关于Facebook、焦虑以及社交媒体激发个人巨变的力量。